Montgomery's Cheddar

The Montgomery family are third generation farmers in South Somerset, producing world-class unpasteurised cheese by hand to ensure that each and every cheese is worthy of the accolade West Country Farmhouse Cheddar.

We make about 60 truckles of unpasteurised farmhouse Cheddar each week with the milk produced by our 140 Friesian cows. Before joining the herd, our young cows roam on South Cadbury "Camelot", an Iron Age hill fort on the farm, heavily fortified at the time that King Arthur defended Wessex from the Saxons.

We make our cheese 7 days a week to ensure the freshness of the milk, which is vital since the milk is not heat-treated before use. The cultures used to create acidity are the same strains used when the family started cheesemaking 70 years ago. They are difficult to handle and produce a wide variation in flavours, but they have lots of character.

We're one of the few cheesemakers who still uses calf rennet, the traditional source of the enzyme, to start the curd; and possibly the only farmhouse Cheddar still using an old, slow peg mill to produce the peculiar fissuring and brittleness of the cheese.

Although the cheese we produce is reward enough for all our hard work, I was very proud to be awarded Champion Cheesemaker of the World this year.